


Battery Life

by Ranni



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Dehydration, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, HYDRA Reveal in progress, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, It's been so long since I've tagged that I'm genuinely flummoxed, Manipulative Nick Fury, Protective Nick Fury, SHIELD, Starvation, Team as Family, Torture, bad things happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:01:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29755869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: Clint Barton was suffering through the most boring meeting of his life when HYDRA decided to reveal itself.
Relationships: Avengers Team & SHIELD Agents & Staff, Clint Barton & Avengers Team, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Nick Fury, Clint Barton & Tony Stark, Nick Fury & Avengers Team
Comments: 39
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

*

**97%**

Clint Barton is concentrating on not looking like he’s about to murder everyone in the room. 

Because he isn’t—this is just one of a million boring presentations that HR forces them to suffer through occasionally, and this is a room full of people that he knows slightly and hates not at all. But he still looks murderous because his face, which is nice enough looking when talking and animated, otherwise settles unpleasantly into a natural scowl which looks glum on a good day and downright threateningon a bad one. 

He’s learned how to counteract it. His chin must be angled up, never down, and he takes care that his eyes don't linger and stare too long or too hard at any one person. Finally—and this is the most important of all—he has to make a special effort to turn both corners of his mouth at all times. It feels like a leering grin, like he's a macabre marionette, but he's done it in front of a mirror enough to know that however ridiculous it _feels_ the end result is worth it, a pleasantly neutral face.

The first time Clint tried this was in another meeting, years ago now, Phil Coulson had skipped a long beat, giving Clint a considering look before continuing with his presentation, never mentioning it otherwise. Natasha gave no outward indication that she’d noticed at all, other than sliding over a piece of paper that read _You look like you’re having some sort of episode._

They knew him too well for their opinions to count. To everyone else, Clint finally looked like a normal guy. 

* 

Right now he’s working extra hard to combat the murder face, because someone keeps asking questions. 

While most people are resigned to merely enduring a meeting, there are some who prolong them painfully by sharing personal anecdotes or asking endless clarifying questions. This woman is one of latter, and right now Clint, with his amiable mask, is the only person not glaring at her. 

“Non-exempt employees get up to four personal days, which may not be carried over at the end of the year.” The Human Resources rep, Helen, isn’t exactly robotic as she says it, but neither is it her regular speaking voice. “Exempt employees are granted eight additional annual leave days, but have no personal leave days.” 

“Can you detail the process for requesting leave?” comes immediately. The questioning woman has huge eyes, so big that they’ve passed _cute_ and veered straight into _odd_ territory. Kitten eyes. Doll eyes. Clint can’t tell if she’s getting some sort of savage glee from making the rest of them suffer or if the woman is genuinely clueless. 

She blinks innocently with those big eyes while a man on the other side of the conference table mutters _Jesus_ under his breath. Someone else sighs audibly. 

Clint plucks another mini-Snickers out of the candy dish in the middle of the table and pops it into his mouth, twisting the wrapper into a little golden snarl. He’s eaten about fourteen of them so far, and later on he’ll regret that mightily, but for now he only knows that he’s bored and hungry, putting all his energy into maintaining his rictus grin as he eats them one after another. 

“Holidays, as I’m sure you know, _will_ count for compensatory overtime if the total hours worked that week exceed forty hours, but only if they exceed forty hours. But, again, that’s only if you’re non-exempt.” 

None of this applies to Clint. Agents exist outside of a normal schedule and compensation plan, and to make him sit through this training is as senseless as making the plumber learn to sew field sutures. But rules are rules and here he sits. He grabs another candy. He’s killing Doll Eyes with those Snickers. Each one he eats will hasten her death just a little, but he doesn’t know that. Just eats and twists and assembles the wrappers like a little gold log cabin, a thoughtless future villain in the making. 

“All employees are entitled to a one hour break for lunch, but may not take that hour to defray early or late arrivals. Which of course doesn’t apply if the employee is exem—” 

That’s when the first bomb goes off. 


	2. Chapter 2

**97%**

“Be quiet,” he warns the others, even though they _are_ being quiet. “Just....shhh.” 

It’s just something to say, like letting steam from a valve. A release of pressure. He readjusts his grip on the knife, knuckles aching from clenching too hard. A knife. A fucking _knife_. How the hell has he, Clint Barton, allowed himself to get pinned down in suddenly hostile territory armed only with a knife? Tomorrow he’ll hate himself over the whole Snickers thing, but now, right now, his overriding regret is not bringing a gun to work. 

The others huddle in a group in the corner of the conference room while Clint stands in the doorway, straining for every sound. The first explosion came from the floor above—it might have been Medical; that’s one of three places Clint would hit, where he behind this operation—while gunfire opened up elsewhere. Shouting. Screams. Running footsteps. His mind keeps trying to weave a narrative from what he heard and what he imagines might be happening out there, twenty years of chaos experience giving him more than enough material to work with. 

It’s gone largely silent now, just enough movement that he knows the insurgents in the corridors beyond are still alive. Whispering to each other. Moving. Whispering again. Sandwiched between a rallying SHIELD force on one side, and Clint’s terrified group of pseudo-civilians on the other. 

He isn’t even aware that he’s inched steadily from the doorway into the hall until one of the women loudly declares “No. _No._ Nononononono—” and Clint hastily retreats back inside, hands raised to shush her. 

“Fine; I won’t, I was just trying to see if I could hear anything.” Even poorly armed he’s still their best defense. An agent. An Avenger. Clint represents their best shot at making it out of the sudden attack alive, and they don’t want to give him up. 

Wedged into the corner of the room, Helen raises her phone to the ceiling, toward the wall. There’s no signal. She bobs it toward the other wall. Nothing. Human Resources is a warren of offices deep in the bowels of SHIELD; there are no windows and the metal walls make cell reception a spotty prospect even the best day. 

This is not one of those days. 

“God,” Helen says, strangled. “God.” 

“Just hold on,” Clint says, and hopes his voice sounds reassuring. “It’ll be over soon.” 

As if on cue, the emergency lights shut off. 

* 

**90%**

Clint’s phone doesn’t have a signal any more than the others’, but it still works as a flashlight, and after they were plunged into blackness this little bit of light is the only thing keeping group hysteria at bay. Clint looks from the dimly illuminated faces of his coworkers to that steadily decreasing number on display, then again to the dark hallway beyond their little hiding space. Waiting. Waiting for the next thing to happen. 

It’s a Starkphone, of course, but a souped up version that Tony made just for his friends, and the battery life is supposed to be infinite. _Theoretically_ , Tony always amended. Something about the phone syncing with JARVIS and the Tower and yadda yadda yadda—Clint really hadn’t been paying attention and now wishes that he had. And he also wishes that Tony's love of hyperbole hadn’t planted the suggestion that the phone battery would last forever, because now there’s no Tower to sync with, and the battery is proving to be finite after all. There’s 90% left, and that sounds like a lot because it is a lot, if all Clint were planning to do was text and talk and check the weather. But as their light source the phone is draining fast.

“I just don’t see why they haven’t come to get us yet.” Duncan used to be an agent before getting hurt and relegated to desk duty—the classic SHIELD career trajectory made flesh. “Don’t they know we’re back here? They _have_ to know.” 

“Shhh,” Clint hisses, furious, and strains back to the hallway again. Quiet now, but they had been talking. More loudly than before, interspersed with arguing. Clint had an idea that they were talking to SHIELD, negotiating perhaps. He was pretty sure that he’d heard the amplified sound of Fury’s voice in the distance before Duncan started talking, drowning everything out. 

He checks his phone again. There's still no signal, the phone a useless lump beyond its light producing abilities. He imagines himself calling the Avengers, off on the other side of the country, attending a fundraiser, casually asking for help. Or texting Natasha— _Pinned down in conference room 6, send help_ would be the most succinct message, while _Got caught in a coup, wish you were here_ has a little more poetry to it. 

“What do we do if they come back here?” Doll Eyes asks. The other _t_ _hey_ this time. The not-SHIELD folks, the nameless _th_ _ey_ who have attacked for unknown reasons. _“_ We have nothing to defend ourselves with. What are we supposed to do?” 

Resigned to having missed anything worth hearing from the hallway, Clint asks them, “You ever heard Fury’s speech? The one about fighting to the last man, to your last breath, and all that?” 

Clint has heard the defense of SHIELD lecture more than a few times. To never surrender, to never accept an order to surrender, even if it came from Fury himself, even if the man swore on a stack of bibles while doing so. A terrifying and enthralling charge of duty, a speech that much later Clint would realize was largely cribbed from Winston Churchill. But the first time he heard it he'd been enraptured that he'd half hoped that it _would_ come to that, that nineteen year old Clint Barton would have a chance to show how willing he was to die for the love of SHIELD. 

Forty year old Clint Barton is much less interested in the idea. 

“Yeah, I heard it,” Duncan says. “Didn’t seem likely to happen at the time. But it is a good speech.” 

* 

**86%**

At first he thinks he’s imagining it, then wonders if he’s having some sort of delayed stress reaction, if he’s going into shock. Because it’s cold. Then colder. Then so cold that it’s impossible to pretend the plummeting temperature is anything but reality. 

“Why is the air conditioning on?” Helens’ teeth are chattering. 

“Must be malfunctioning,” someone offers. “Though I don’t see how it’s on at all, if the power’s out.” 

Clint doesn’t say anything. He has a pretty good idea. 

* 

**83%**

His suspicions are confirmed when an hour later the frigid temperature is replaced by a rapidly rising one. 

His hands aren’t shaking with the cold anymore, so the phone is steady as he watches the clock change over to midnight. It’s officially tomorrow now. 

Those _were_ negotiations he’d heard before, and they’ve apparently failed. Straight forward assault also seems to have failed, but Fury has other ways to drive his enemies out. He'll freeze them out, burn them out, drive them crazy in darkness, blind them with light. He might be unaware that eight of his people are pinned down in this back conference room, affected by those same brutal tactics. It might not make any difference even if he does know—Fury doesn't just give the 'win at all costs' speech about SHIELD; he lives it.

As the temperature climbs everyone starts shedding clothes. Clint takes off his socks and winces at the warmth beneath his feet, wondering how much hotter it will get, if it will get hot enough to burn. A curl of panic settles in his stomach at the same moment the sweat starts dripping down his face. 

They're pinned in a windowless room with no power and no resources beyond phones that don't work and a few pocketknives scattered between them. In the first few hours of the attack the only words that rose to Clint Barton’s mind were variations on _how_ and _why_ and _what the fuck_. But now it's officially tomorrow and another word occurs to him. One that starts as a annoyance but grows each hour in importance, a word that's suddenly all he can think about, a word that's become the whole world.

 _Thirsty_. 


End file.
